No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

In an effort to ensure that our aged aunts are staving off scurvy, we decided last year to gift them with a classic Fruit of the Month Club gift for Christmas.

They swooned over the delicately packaged plums and robust Florida oranges. They embraced the fat kiwis and the Washington state apples. We seemed to be on roll when they raved over the pristine pink grapefruit. And then trouble arrived packaged in the amber hued skins of the bad news mangoes.

Who knew that the sweet fleshy fruit of these oval beauties would force Aunt Stella into dermatological distress? Upon consuming a fruit salad in which mango was a dominant player, Stella broke into a rash, her face swelled up and she remembered that the last time she had mango might have been in Florida in the 1950s and that she could possibly be allergic to it.

Oy. Vey.

Aunt Bert remembered that she had a topical cream from her dermatologist that was cited for these kinds of conditions. She gave it to Stella who applied it copiously. The result? Stella's face ballooned and the rash spread. She was apparently allergic to some ingredient in the topical as well. I think it may have been the mango extract.

Stella then went to her dermatologist for an exam but not before she started experiencing a drooping eye from the effect. She's now getting treatment, but it's a slow recovery. What do you expect, people? The woman is 94 years old. We feel just terrible.

The July delivery will be bing cherries. And trust me, the recipients have been warned.